Things We Couldn't Touch
by Mamamia11
Summary: Maybe we're just scared, maybe we're just lonely; maybe not.
1. Black

Chapter 1

Hijikata found her in the dark alley when he was going out for a patrol. She is crying, exhausted and wounded; there is blood everywhere.

She's hugging her knees tightly, her back to the dirty wall with some garbage cans nearby.

He knows her well, not just because of the weird bond between them and Yorozuya but there are times when they've worked with each other. Partners, he might say. And had he not known about her personality, he would've given her some more respect, because he has to admit, she is very good at fighting, and has never failed to make him impressed.

She always seems like she has too much energy and is way too loud and annoying. He remembers seeing her sinister smile, insane laugh and even salivate over her loved one, but he has never seen her like this: broken and lost and full of weakness. Like a lost child, looking for her imaginary friend not knowing she would have to grow up.

Maybe, maybe this is what ( _who_ , he corrects) she actually is, she just doesn't show it. He read somewhere that those people who laugh the most are also the ones experienced the most pains.

Think about that, he realizes, they're all like this, every person he has met, miserable and hopeless yet always laughs like there is nothing in the world could ever bother them anymore. Though looking at her right now, "this" Sacchan, he still feels odd.

Because the others just keep their wounds for themselves, keep on fearing that it might destroy whoever gets to see. But this woman, it's like she doesn't even know she has lost her wings for a long time ago, and it breaks him a little bit. So instead of walking away, Hijikata's just standing there, looking down at her.

"Oi," he finally speaks, what was her name again? Stalker, perverted ninja, ugly pig?

"Ayame."

And that is how in the future, this is a day he'd wish had never happened in his messed up life.

* * *

"Go away!" She doesn't look up, her arms still covering her head and he can hear the annoyance in her voice. He wonders if she knew it was him.

Hijikata sighs, keeping silent while he leans his back against the mossy wall. A tinge of smoke from his cigarette floating above their head. Uneasy heat of summer evening and the smell of trash; the filthy puddle she is sitting in.

He ignores her too well the second time, but frowns when she starts adding _fat-ass_ at the end of every sentence. Despise her childish insults, he closes his eyes, feeling a little unease because of the calmness he finds in the sound of her blood slowly dripping out.

Sacchan doesn't try to send him away anymore. That guy is a weirdo, she concludes. He's addicted to mayonaise and will not leave you alone if he doesn't want to. It's strange that his presence doesn't bother her that much, mostly because her head is so dizzy and at this point some guy watching her crying is the least of her problems. She had stopped crying a while ago, now she just tries not to think of anything – her love for that man, and her knowledge that with these hands of hers, she could never touch him without staining him.

Because Gin-san—Gin-san is the purest thing ever happened in her cursed life. Sure he always acts like some sort of useless lazy heartless bastard, sure he killed people—bad people, and she is very sure that she wants to touch him and do a lot of not-so-pure things with him. But it is not just that. It's the way he secretly cares about others, shelters as much people as he can and takes everything on his shoulders; the way he pulled her out of that deep dark water and let her see, for the first time, the color of the bright blue sky behind his back.

That is his color, she assumed, free and wide open and somewhat telling her there's still hope.

And his red eyes, the most gorgeous eyes she has ever seen, hiding passion and a fire that keeps people warm. He's like a fireplace surrounded by cold stones—one of the thousand reasons why she loves being around him so much, especially in those frigid days, when she could feel blood dried out under her fingernails.

He would never judge her for what she did though (of course, except for her annoying and masochistic behaviors towards him), but it only makes her feel worse. She can no longer cut through someone's throat without thinking about her hands on him, on his white hair, on his white clothes.

Today was no exception, she hesitated, again. Even though she still completed her mission and successfully killed off the target, she wounded so bad, and just as tragic as her enemies. Sacchan thinks she deserves it. She broke her own principles, she let her love life affect her job.

The sky, she can't see it. Her eyes hurt and so does her whole body. She thinks she is going to die right here, in this small gloomy fetid alley where she randomly landed on in her way to escape. She is going to die but not alone, because there is, right beside her, among garbage and cigarette filters—Hijikata, along with his usual scowling expression.

"I've just killed people," she blurts out for no apparent reason. Her voice is weak, and he can tell how close she is to crying again. "One of them… the boy, he's like... like twelve or something, I don't—I was just…"

Hijikata stares at her, drops his unfinished cigarette on the ground. His eyes focus on her small shoulders and the way they tremble uncontrollably when she starts sobbing very hard.

"He's just a kid, you know..."

Was, he was, they both think so, but neither of them say a word.

"Wanna eat my mayonnaise?" Hijikata asks, swallows the irony. This woman has basically just confessed her crime to him, and here he is, trying to comfort her.

"No...," It takes a minute for the word to come out, like she is seriously considering it, or is just surprised by his unrelated question. "It's disgusting."

"You're disgusting!"

There is a pause. Then, "… I know."

Hijikata almost screams. He has never been smart with words, and the way he manages to turn a consolation to upsetting people makes him rethink about his capability as an officer. He is supposed to talk people out of suicide, not encourage them.

"No no, I mean, you're not disgusting, so is mayonnaise. Nothing is disgusting here, okay? Especially my stuff—no, shit, you're not mine, I mean—"

Sacchan faints before he has the change to finish his clumsy explain, she's touched her limit. She doesn't collapse on the road, but her head falls sideways and her arms around her knees loose as her body, giving him the perfect view to see how much blood she has lost.

The crows cry out over his head and goosebumps drawing on his skin while he reaches down to check her breath.

A really, really long time after that, when he's standing in the crowded hall of the hospital, all the sounds disappear and his hands full of Sacchan's blood and he goes back to the day where there was a girl and how he couldn't get to say the last goodbye because he wasn't strong enough.

He was never strong enough.


	2. Purple

**Chapter 2**

Someone is calling her name, over and over again.

 _Gin-san?_

No, it can't be. That's not him, he would never call her like that. This voice, it's familiar, yet she can't quite recognize it. She has never been good at recognizing people voices except if it belongs to Gin-san.

 _Ayame Ayame Ayame..._

 _Who is that?_

 _Who is calling my name?_

"Sacchan-san, you're awake."

It's Shinpachi, with his cheerful expression. "You have been asleep for two days. We were really worried."

His voice sounds like echoed from afar and Sacchan keeps blinking to clear her blurry vision. The pain is peeking out of its hiding place, flowing through her body, letting her remember how miserable she really was. She wants to ask where is this place but her throat is burning so instead she hardly looks around, and as soon as her eyes caught the sight of someone's white curly hair, her heart bumps crazy in her chest.

It's Gin-san, pale and fragile, sleeping peacefully on another bed. Her mind is instantly filled with screams of touch him hug him jump on him wrap around him until we're merged into each other and never let him go but her damaged body does not agree. Besides, his injuries make her reconsider.

"Ah, yeah… Gin-san came in here one day after you," Shinpachi explains while looking over his shoulder. "He's alright now so don't worry and just rest, okay?"

He then lets out an understanding smile when Sacchan ignores him and keeps staring hard at Gintoki. He knows she'll be worried anyway.

"Well, we are about to leave. There is still works to do. We'll be back tomorrow."

"Also don't even think about doing anything stupid that might piss him off when he wakes up, like trying to *beep beep beep* or *beeeeep* okay?" Kagura says innocently, results in her receiving a dozen of sermons from Shinpachi on the way out.

It's so quiet after that. Seconds have passed but she still hasn't turned away from Gintoki. He's right there, next to her, sleeping and yet she can't do anything not even come close to him and it frustrates her to death. A nurse comes in with new intravenous fluids and medicines. The woman checks everything and fixes her blanket before drawing the curtain separates Gintoki's bed and hers even though Sacchan said not to.

"You need to rest, Sarutobi-san," is the only thing she says in reply.

Later, when Sacchan can finally feel her arms again, she tries to reach out in the hope of removing the mournful white curtain. Her hand drops like dead branches every time she thinks she'll make it. She only gives up when her body is on the edge of falling and the pain from somewhere under her rib cage finally drags a moan out of her cracked lips. And she can't help thinking that this is it, this is what it's meant to be, the distance between them. It was so much closer back then, the day they first met. The day where she made a hole in his roof before landing on his body, and they unconsciously slept like that till morning light. He even went to her "house" to ask her "father" for her hand in marriage.

That day was like a dream, a destination, but somehow it turned into a nightmare; a curse.

Maybe it's because her sins have dragged her deeper into the dark. Or maybe it was always a nightmare, a nightmare dressed up as a dream and waited for her to fall.

And she did.

( _guess blue and purple are not that close._ )

* * *

"Well, fuck it," Sacchan says while kneeling beside Gintoki's bed and thinks about all the thoughts she has had the day before. "You know what Gin-san? If I don't steal your lips right now then that, that is a sin!"

What is dream or nightmare even? And how funny the word "distance" sounds to her ears. Life and death and broken and intact and—everything no longer makes sense when Gin-san, with his naked body (in her eyes, he's always naked, especially since he's still in his coma and can't fight back) is right here. His face is about an inch apart from hers and his lips look like the most delicious natto dishes that have never stopped tempting her to take a bite.

If she's going to hell—Sacchan thinks as she places her hand on Gintoki's chest and leans in to meet his mouth—she'll take him with her and make him the Lord.

"You dirty little pig…" Gintoki catches her in the act, unfortunately. His right hand's covering her mouth and his tired eyes trying to take in his surroundings. There was a shadow with a weird aura hovering all over his dim vision and he woke up to be greeted by a very erotic face. "Get the hell out of me."

He's too weak. His head hurts and he can't even recall what had happened and how it led to him being in this situation. He thinks he's having a fever, and Sacchan keeps leaning in.

"Seriously stop!" Gintoki hisses when Sacchan accidentally presses on his wound. She moves her hand and immediately backs away right after the first sign of blood dripping through the bandages around his chest.

"I–I'm sorry, Gin-san," Sacchan apologizes, panicking. "Here, let me help you."

"Don't touch me!" Gintoki slaps her hand away, perhaps a little too hard. She really is getting on his nerve.

"I'm used to be a nurse once don't you remember? Although it was just acting, still I—"

"Go away! Your hands are for killing, not healing."

* * *

There is a ray of sunlight shines a little above his right eye, emphasizing his eyelashes and he is so beautiful when he says that.

She stops, and listens carefully. Her heart is beating still and she doesn't feel anything odd, breaking, cracking, falling to pieces. Nothing at all.

She sees no cruelty in his eyes, just annoyance and discomfort. Even though she knows he didn't mean it that way, she still struggles to ignore the detached part of herself that keeps telling her how true his words are, and that under the assassin label she is nothing more than a murderer. Sacchan swallows the thought, reminds herself to smile before realizing she's been doing it—how long has she been smiling?

Maybe it was formed into a habit. Maybe it's her masochism doing, or the lie she's been telling herself from time to time.

 _This is good. This is so good._

"Mou~ Gin-san, please be more cruel to me!"

 _Keep smiling. And tell him you love him._

"I love you so much you know?"

* * *

"Gin-san, do you feel any better?"

"It'd be much better if that bitch over there wasn't here," Gintoki says angrily. Shinpachi and Kagura follow his eyes to see Sacchan, sitting on the side of her bed, happily dangling her legs even though she has just been scolded by the head nurse for playing around. "Why of all people it has to be you? I wanna change to another room! Transfer me to another room!"

"No need for that, Gin-san," Sacchan beams, a little too much. "I'll go home tomorrow so don't worry."

"Sacchan-san…," Shinpachi says her name in an empathetic kind of way while Gintoki looks doubting.

"But honestly I am thinking about injuring myself so I could stay here longer with my beloved Gin-san. Te-he!"

"I knew it! I knew you were not gonna give up that easy you psychopathic bitch. And don't even 'te-he' with m—"

"Well well well," the sound of slicing door interrupts Gintoki and someone walks in. "We've come to say the last goodbye but seems like you've still got it, Danna."

"You sadist bastard…," Kagura growls at the sight of Sougo, quickly forms her body into an defensive posture when he keeps walking towards her direction, with Kondo and Hijikata following behind.

As expected, lots of people of Kabuki-chou have arrived. They all came for him, Otose-san and Katherin, Otae and Kyubei, Seita had to drag Tsukuyo in because she said she didn't want to see "the stupid face of 'that guy'", and Hasegawa—the one that has been talking about committing suicide since then. Some of them she can't remember the names, some new and some old, and they've been making a chaos as well.

Sacchan was looking at them when this sudden realization—no, more like an enlightenment—hit her really hard. She never saw this before because she was standing inside of the picture. Now when she's finally being in the right place, as a complete outsider, she can look at it clearly and she thinks to herself that _gosh this is so right_.

It feels so right, the picture before her eyes, delightful and ecstatic, like standing on top of the mountain and watching sunset on the way back home. She can see Kagura and Sougo bark at each other while Sadaharu barking along. In the corner not so far away, Kondo being Kondo and gets hit by Otae. Shinpachi is comforting Hasegawa while Otose-san and Katherin preserve Tama from Yamazaki's awkward flirting like mother and sister. And Sacchan knows that she is supposed to be angry but looking at those two together, Gin-san and Tsukuyo, her heart just becomes quiet.

She doesn't want to admit it but they really suit each other. They have that chemistry that no one can deny, a history, too; fighting with back to back, and the comparable pain they've been carrying from the old days that she wishes she could but could not understand.

No matter how hard she tries, she just can't imagine Gin-san standing by her, holding her hand, especially holding her hand ( _killing hands, dirty hands, her hands_ ). That's just not right, even with a ton of flowers and hearts and candles and whipping noises in the background.

The silence inside her heart swallows up the chatter and laughter in the room and she feels so empty all of a sudden. Like that realization has taken all of her energy, all of her strength and she tries hard not to throw up, resisting the urge to run somewhere else far away.

She was slowly breathing in when her charcoal eyes met his russet. The connection lasts for just a beat of a heart, then she blinks and it's gone.

And somehow when she breaths out, she accidentally calls out his name, too.

* * *

Though he has never looked at her since he arrived, Hijikata knows she is there. How can he not know when he was the one who brought her here in the first place?

He knows exactly the number of her room, which floor it belongs to; the position of her bed and how he intended to choose it because it was next to the window. And when he heard that same number from Sougo's mouth on the way up, he knew it would be bad, and had prepared for some messed up scenes when Sougo opened the door.

Turned out everything was fine. A little bit of screaming but no touching, hugging, beating, SM playing and he didn't look at her or say a word but noted that she's safe and sound.

When Gintoki is surrounded by a bunch of people and no one notices him smoking in the hospital, he starts to wonder abstractedly if there was any reason for this unknown relief. There is something definitely wrong with him since that gloomy day, and he's trying hard to focus on what Kondo's been saying and getting her out of his mind because why does he even care? He did everything he could, saved her life, treated her right, which was what he had to do, as an exemplary Police officer.

That is right, he declares inside his head, he is Hijikata Toshiro – the Demon Vice Commander of Shinsengumi after all. He saves people's lives, kills the bad guys and preaches some cool stuff. There is no time to worry about some girls with personal issues.

But once again, he finds himself questioning about how silent she has been from the beginning, the way she sits quietly without moving or even making any noises. And in an unconscious moment of reason and what seems to have been arranged, their eyes meet across the crowded room.

It takes him two seconds to look away, and two more to hear she cries out his name. Her voice is harsh, dry and urgent, and the syllables come out of her mouth like that's all she knows; like it is an old hollow trunk, floating on the water's surface and she hardly holds on to it so she would not drown.

A cry for help.

* * *

There is a really long awkward silence afterward.

Every person in the room has constantly stopped what they were doing and just staring at her, but she couldn't care less because they—Sacchan and Hijikata, surprised and full of questions—have been looking at each other and she's just found out that his eyes are deeper than she ever thought; darker, moreover. And it scares her a bit because of what she shouldn't have seen, and what she cannot understand.

( _she will never understand._ )

Sarutobi Ayame sees war in his eyes. And regret.

* * *

" _Me as well… bring me with you as well. I'm like a mother to Sou-chan, he needs me. And... I want to stay with you all. I want to stay by your side, Toshiro._ "

" _I don't care. This is none of my concern._ "


	3. Blue

Shinpachi is the corrector. He has only his glasses to see through impreciseness.

Year after year he watches their world changing. People come and go, smile and cry—he'd cry with them, keeping in his mind that today is a brand new page of their story and tomorrow may come with the happy ending. Learning and improving and getting stronger.

But he also knows that the root, the foundation (where they'd started) will always be there no matter how far the branches rising. The root, the remaining, something to be remembered by when they're lost, somewhere to come back when they're tired. Harmless conversations, silly comments, inappropriate jokes. The mornings where he'd move around the house picking up stuff, grumbling about the mess and then call those two up like a typical mother. Otose-san's visiting with her vulgar yelling even though she knows the samurai cannot afford to pay the rent. And there is, as significant, Sacchan with her lively, joyful voice, calling Gintoki anywhere they go before she gets beaten trying to hug him. All that things, he would trade his life to keep.

That is why when the _Toshiro_ comes out of her mouth and Shinpachi lifts his head to see the look on her face, he is speechless. Not sarcasm, not "kun", "san" or any one of those honorific titles were added, just his name alone, then silence meets tension, and eyes looking into eyes.

Feeling meddlesome, he turns to Gintoki. There is nothing in the man's eyes, not even the slightest emotion, which is (supposed to be) natural.

Sacchan's next words—feel like have been held for eternity—starlet him.

"Thank you", she says quietly, so quiet he almost misses it. A flush creeps up her face when she adds "for taking me to the hospital" as she bends down her head.

Shinpachi has not been satisfied. Her words only answered one of his basic questions. There are more than that, there are _whats_ and _whys_ and _hows_. And _where did she go_ because this is not the real Sacchan. Sacchan he knows is an aggressive, indeed crazy woman. This Sacchan, the one he's looking at right now, is just a little girl, with her trembling little heart.

"It's nothing", Hijikata responds nonchalantly before walking out of the room, as if someone calling his last very name is the most normal thing in the world.

People immediately get back to their casual chitchats like nothing ever happens, but not for Shinpachi. Shinpachi is the corrector. He has only his glasses to see through impreciseness, and he knows every "nothing" he has encountered this afternoon was far from accuracy.

* * *

Because Shinpachi has learned that even though Gintoki's eyes are basically the eyes of a dead fish, there always have to be something in it. Mostly boredom, sometimes rage, a whiff of erstwhile sorrow has been concealed carefully; even the death itself.

And when there is nothing he can see, perhaps it is everything he needs to wonder.

* * *

Sacchan spends the rest of the night trying to find a color that fits his eyes.

Using colors to identify people has become her habit. A silly method Zenzou has suggested back when they were kids to make up for her poor eyesight even though it wasn't really helpful. It's mainly based on people's appearances, and how she feels about them. Like Kagura with red of clothes, umbrella and her enthusiastic blazing heart. Tsukuyo of royal and majestic gold, because of her hair, and how she's supposed to be seen: splendid; like a queen. And although Gintoki is a white monster himself, she prefers him to the lightest blue of the clear sky.

She has always seen Hijikata as something black as a bitter moonless midnight or the deepest bottom of a nightmare—in which you could only run away in a painfully heavy and slow motion. But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that maybe he is something else—softer, more gentle. Maybe he, too, is blue, but the darkest shade of blue. A blue that if she unintentionally glanced at it once, she would've mistaken it for black. A blue that would not dazzle her eyes because it's too close to the sun.

A blue that would not be stained no matter how many times she touches it.

The sound of fallen leaves skimming the ground catches her attention and Sacchan looks through the window to see a street lamp standing in the distance. Her eyes reflect a dull yellow light, covered in layers of dust but the bugs still find joy in it. If it weren't for her injured body, she would land gracefully on the top of it with just one movement. Then she'd go somewhere, the hospital's rooftop for instance, anywhere the wind passing by.

Here it's stuffy, like being imprisoned, and Gintoki's breathing is making it worse, because she knows he hasn't fallen to sleep, even when he tries to make her believe so.

Not to be proud but she has been there for quite a long time, she knows what he sounds like when he sleeps. And the thought of him pretending to sleep to avoid her company interests Sacchan, causing her Lovestruck-pig mode to activate. So she leans in, the second time of the day, both hands against the edge of her bed, lifting the weight of her body. She sees only her shadow, pasting on the curtain dyed in a dim yellow light. She hears only the rustling of her hospital uniform.

"Gin-san," she whispers, ignores her knowledge that he is still sick and needs to rest as much as possible. She hates herself too, but once his name comes out of her mouth, nothing can hold her heart back.

There is no response, typical; she calls him two more times.

It is like she has been calling his name forever, like keeps on reading an endless poem that no longer makes sense, but the verses will always rouse butterflies inside her stomach, words make her feel alive and rhythm calm her mind.

Even in the most lonely moments of her life, when she'd sit in the dark and silence, dying, looking up to blooming fireworks across the sky. Even in the most shameful moments of her life, when she'd feel an unfamiliar body embracing her, let them hands touch her to her deepest, wondering whether she should cry for herself or the world she's living in because no one has—ever—told her that it's not okay to sleep with someone she doesn't love then kill them for the sake of her job.

Even this and even that, she will call him. In her head, in her heart.

( _Gin-san, Gin-san, Gin-san._ )

"I'm coming over," she warns, believes that he'd tell her to back off.

Nonetheless, there is nothing but her shadow staring back at her, unmoved. It seems like he wants to win their small little game (or can stand her no more and is planning on committing murder as soon as she gets there). She bites her lower lip, intercepting the desire of calling him once more. In these days, it's so easy for her to play in her head what could possibly happen if she crossed the line.

But today is different. Something is telling her that today is different, that, today might be the day. The stars might be in position and there might be zero point zero one percent chance he would let her touch his hand.

There is one thing about the odds. It has never been with her. Though she starts counting under her breath, draws her index finger rhythmically.

 _Eeny meeny miny moe,_

 _catch the tiger by his toe,_

("Who do you work for, I could pay you double."

She hears a man voice, somewhere in the back of her head. The man is standing before his family, protecting. "I know what you people really are. Just give me a number."

He sounds quite certainly, in a businessman kind of way; confident and taking control.

That is not what he sounds like when she cuts through his throat.

The man—husband-father—falls, reveals the other two. She hears their frightened screams before she sees their faces.)

 _If it hollers let it go,_

("Please, please, you can do whatever you want to me—," the mother, looks so much younger than her husband; beautiful, tender, but not in this moment. This moment, she is just _scared_. "—but please let my child go. He did nothing wrong. He knows nothing. I'm begging you."

"Mama," the boy calls, clinging to his mother's arm. A trail of blood attached to his face, besides tears. Sacchan looks at her hand, dripping from her kunai is that exact same blood.

"Don't worry," she hears herself speak, for the first time.

"I'll make it fast."

Then she launches her body forwards, and the suffocating noises of screaming and crying, heart beating and accusing; a buried guilt trying to break, all sunk in the darkness.)

Sacchan never completes her counting.

* * *

 _eeny meeny miny moe,_

 _catch the tiger by his toe,_

Either it hollers or not, guess she'll still have to let him go.

* * *

"So are we not going to talk about what happened yesterday?" Shinpachi begins on the next morning, after he confirmed that Sacchan had really left. He let Kagura stay at home since she was not waking up.

Gintoki doesn't look up from his Jump.

"What happened yesterday?"

"You know, them—Sacchan-san and Hijikata-san." The younger boy stops peeling apples. There is this honest look in his eyes when he puts down the knife with a clank and asks his boss, "don't you think there might be something uncanny going on between them?"

"First of all, I don't care. And you know the rest," Gintoki says casually, picking his nose. His pupils move as he turns to another page of the magazine.

Shinpachi decides to ignore his attitude.

"Did you not see them? I mean, it was so obvious even Kagura'd taken notice. We've had a discussion and came to the conclusion that there is definitely something going on that we know nothing about. Something-something huge."

"Tch," an unpleasant noise escapes Gintoki's lips, "you really love exaggerating things don't ya? The bastard helped the stalker so the stalker thanked the bastard. That's it, end of story now quit being a drama queen and leave me alone."

"But—" _but_ , Shinpachi is no fool, Shinpachi only believes in what he saw. "It's a matter of fact that Hijikata-san will snap on whoever calls his last name except for Kondo-san—whom he respects, yet he was totally fine with her doing so."

While talking, eyes behind glasses never part from the samurai: studying, waiting for a sign, or the smallest change of expressions. The too bright sunshine making his white messy hair look like a crown. Shinpachi wonders if this was the last thing the kunoichi had saw before she left.

"And that's not all. There were the long, really long gazing, Sacchan-san's blushing face, the atmosphere around them. It couldn't be for nothing."

The boy stops, takes a sharp breath. "And now she even leaves _you_ alone."

Shinpachi doesn't want to be an ass about it. All he is trying to do is to fix thing before it has the chance to start falling apart. Because Gintoki may be the master of reading people's mind, but in the end, he is only a human, and humans suck with their own feelings. Gintoki's glance makes him instantly unsure.

"Good for me then."

And, "you should stop watching too many dramas and get a life kiddo. Trust me, sugar is far more important than love" is what Shinpachi hears in the end as he walks out of the room. And maybe it is the light, but when he looks back, the picture of Gintoki half sitting there alone in the semi-private room somehow saddens him. Somewhere behind his eyes is a flashback of Kagura with a rarely mature look on her face, telling him not to butt in others' business, and until now he has just thought about how she must have been right.

Yet he turns, and leaves.

People will always leave.

It's just a matter of time, Gintoki thinks afterward, when he has laid back down. The mattress is not comfortable, but he won't complain. This is a medium room; this is good enough. He wants to draw the curtain out because of the brightness—why would the nurse drew it in—but he is too lazy to sit back on. Hence, he covers his face with the magazine, he hasn't finished it—never actually read it, and closes his eyes.

People are leaving.

* * *

Hijikata had never believed in such thing as love until the day he met her.

He grew up in the war, with violence and vengeance and lost. Which was why he had not prepared for the ticklish feeling inside his stomach when he accidentally caught a sight of somebody's smile, or heard "Toshiro" in _her_ voice and realized that his name wasn't too bad after all.

First love sought him out like that, in between his madness.

Then there were moments when happiness and hope replaced agony and despair. And sunshine replaced storm. Whenever she was around, everything would become surrealist: sounds, light, colors,... It was all too perfect, too made up. And so it freaked him out.

Still, he'd come to her house every day, say hello with his emotionless "is Sougo home" and hope one day she would—in some miraculous ways—figure it out all by herself because there was no way he was going to do anything else about it. Seeing her was crazy enough. He doubts he would make any different even if there were a chance to go back in time and relive that part of his life; when he was young and stupid and painfully awkward and never knew what to do with his heart.

Because he is Hijikata, and Hijikata will never know exactly what to do with his heart, or how to handle a woman properly. Thus he is here on a normal Wednesday morning, being a grown-up man, inhaling deeply the smoke from his favorite cigarette as he closes the door behind. With no hesitation in his step, Hijikata walks away silently so he won't disturb the sleeping woman on the ceiling.


End file.
